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How to Cook Beans and Resist Dread

2022-08-09 · story · John · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Personal life) · mode: Personal essay

Narrating in the second person as he harvests cranberry beans and cooks chili, John reflects that slow, inefficient work restores him when he feels exhausted and detached from his body, and that being a fleshy, conscious animal is also what lets him share food with people he loves.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Harvesting cranberry beans in a humid, overgrown garden; the inefficiency and the paradox of such work

  • ★★ On a very humid day in Indianapolis, John harvests his beans, first moving bricks set up to foil his nemesis, the groundhog. — 00:00:00 · Indianapolis
  • ★★ John has been feeling a little exhausted lately, so his garden is overgrown and wild. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John calls himself just a creature trying to live with a very strange chronic condition called consciousness. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★ Cranberry beans are named for looking, not tasting, like cranberries; their pods turn red and white when ready to harvest. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John notes the absurd inefficiency: a can of beans costs 79 cents at the store, while his own beans cost triple that before counting his labour. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John suggests that maybe his whole life shouldn't worship at the altar of efficiency anyway. (hedged) — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ John describes a paradox of such work: it takes energy and time he feels short of, yet doing it leaves him less tired and less overwhelmed. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Shelling beans and feeling his mind back in his body; cooking the chili

  • ★★★ John has felt a distance between his mind and body, like two drifted-apart friends; chatting while shelling beans with someone he loves puts his mind back in his body for a while. — 00:01:27
  • ★ Opening each pod is like an extremely low-stakes slot machine, and John is surprised how beautiful he finds the beans. (playful) — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John makes chili rather than a dish celebrating the beans: onions, garden peppers, garlic, plant-based fake hamburger, tomatoes, chili powder, oregano and two beers. — 00:01:56

00:02:45 — Being an organism: forgive yourself, and the point is sharing food with people you love

  • ★★★ John says he is just a fleshy worm with limbs, literally a mammal, an advanced squirrel; so he should forgive himself for getting scared and not knowing which way to turn. (playful, hedged) — 00:02:45
  • ★★ John eats the chili with his family, including cousins from out of town; it tastes good and the beans seem better than store-bought. — 00:03:15
  • ★★★ John reflects that maybe this is the point: being a fleshy worm with consciousness can feel like a lot, but it also lets him share food he worked on with people who love him. (hedged) — 00:03:44

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description invites viewers to join the more than 11,000 members of the Awesome Coffee Club. — video description · Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★ In a comment John posts his full chili recipe: oil, onions, garlic and peppers, browned plant-based burger, then beers, chili powder, vinegar, oregano, beans and tomatoes, simmered an hour. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Borlotti bean

Also: Chronic condition · consciousness · Indianapolis · jump cut · kitchen garden

Only in the description or credits: Awesome Coffee Club

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